The Visit
by bamftastik
Summary: Of course, we all want MCU Bucky to get better… but what if he didn't? After Bucky gets caught by the authorities and put on trial, Steve visits him in a psychiatric facility.


They'd said this wasn't a prison. He'd visited Peggy in the hospital – back when she'd still been with them – but that had been a quiet place, a place to rest and reflect. This was something else. He'd never seen a hospital with such high brick walls, with such an impressive security gate. As pulled to a stop and watched the guard scan his credentials, his eyes strayed skyward. He'd never seen a hospital surrounded by barbed wire either.

The guard waved him through and he made his way slowly up the drive, parking in the nearly empty lot. This place didn't see many visitors. It had taken more than a few favors to find the facility's location, to get clearance for the day. He might not exactly be in the good graces of the powers that be, but there were still a few people out there willing to help Captain America.

Staring up at the building, Steve sighed. He'd fought off an alien invasion, stormed countless Hydra bases, but this weathered old building might as well have been a fortress. He knew this feeling, knew the sinking sensation of seeing the odds stacked against you, of knowing that no matter how hard you fight it might not be enough. But he couldn't turn back. Not from this. Not from him.

The inside of the building had been updated with modern security features, but there was still an air of neglect, an uneasy stillness, a hush that the outside world didn't quite penetrate. No matter the decade, an asylum was an asylum.

At first, they'd tried prison. The man was a war criminal, they said, a traitor. And the authorities had sent him where traitors go. Steve had tried to protest, but they hadn't listened, hadn't understood. Before the case could go to trial, three of the other inmates were in the hospital.

Then had come the media circus. For a while, it had given him hope. People had rallied to the cause, agreeing with him, urging the courts to see things from all sides. But then he'd been allowed his first visit. No matter what happened in the courtroom, one look had been enough to shake him. And that feeling of helplessness had never gone away.

He'd done what he could, whatever he could. One of the early doctors had thought his presence might be helpful, that regular visits from an old friend would only help the patient's chances. He'd wanted so badly to believe it. But whatever he'd seen on that carrier – whatever hesitance, whatever spark – wasn't there anymore. He'd still tried, tried to keep the smile on his face like the doctors had told him. He'd smiled while he watched those wide, panicked eyes dart around the room, smiled when they landed on him and flinched away. Then the screams had started. The doctors rushed in with their needles, pushing him aside, forcing him to watch as his friend slumped limply to the floor. He hadn't smiled much after that.

The damage was too severe, they said. Whatever Hydra had done couldn't be undone. From there, they'd shuffled him around to different facilities, moving him whenever the media got too close, eventually hiding him from even Steve. But none of that mattered anymore.

One of the nurses guided him through the halls, keeping a curious eye on him over her shoulder. He tugged his cap lower, hiding his face. He'd almost gotten used to people recognizing him, to the way they stared. She knew who he was, but he wondered if she knew why he was here.

She left him in a cheerless visiting room, promising to be right down the hall. The furniture was worn and the windows were clouded, barely letting in enough light to chase away the dim. This place might not be a prison but, standing here, he had to wonder if it wasn't somehow worse.

Minutes later, two guards appeared, escorting their charge. Steve was forced to stand aside again, watching as they sat him at the table, as they strapped his arms and legs to the chair. Stark had been called in to examine his arm, had modified it to be no more dangerous than a normal prosthetic. Steve had been furious, despite Tony's insistence that he didn't have a choice. Things hadn't been right between them since.

One of the guards asked him if he wanted them to stay, but he shook his head. As they left, he took the opposite chair, resting his elbows on the table. Then, they were alone.

_Bucky._

He stared out at him from beneath a tangle of lank hair, but this time he barely flinched. He was too skinny, too pale, but he sat straight in the chair, meeting Steve's eyes with more curiosity than suspicion.

"I… know you. You visited me before."

"Yeah, Buck." He tried a small smile. "It didn't go so well."

"Guess I should have been more grateful. No one else ever came."

Once, the doctors had tried to explain the treatments to him, the medications that they were trying. Some were new, experimental. Others were so old that even he understood them, understood what they involved. He hadn't wanted to hear anymore.

Today the nurse had tried to update him again. There were no more experiments, no more shocks. Keeping him calm was the only priority. He certainly looked more like himself. But this wasn't a place where people came to get better. They'd simply hidden him here while the appeals were sorted out, essentially putting him back on ice, keeping him numb until they figured out what to do with him. And he might not know it, but Buck had already given them everything that they needed.

Steve's eyes strayed to the straps binding him to the chair. Now it was his turn to flinch away.

"I'm sorry." Bucky was watching him. His voice was soft, but strong. "Sorry I tried to kill you."

"Buck…"

"I mean it. And the doc says I should say it. Most of the things I've done, I'm never gonna get that chance."

The doctors had speculated that the oldest memories would be the hardest to retrieve. They'd been erased, overwritten too many times. If he did remember anything, it would be more recent, the things the Winter Soldier had done, with no recollection of the man underneath.

"You're not the only one who needs to apologize." Steve stared down at his hands. He'd practiced this so many times, but the words never felt like enough. "This is my fault. I was in such a hurry to follow you, that I didn't think about who might be following me. I led them right to you."

After what happened in D.C., there had been inquiries. Of course, Captain America would be on a watch list. But he hadn't been thinking about that. He'd only been thinking about Bucky. And when he'd finally caught up, their moment alone – his chance to reason with him – had found them surrounded by an entire unit of special forces. It could have been a disaster. So he'd done the only thing he could. He'd convinced him to come in, to stop fighting. He'd told him that there were people who would help him. If he had stopped, just for a moment, he might have realized it was a lie.

Buck shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"It does to me."

"Someone was bound to come looking. I wasn't exactly keeping quiet." He'd taken out four Hydra cells – with extreme prejudice – before Steve had caught up. "I'm probably lucky it was you."

That one man war against Hydra hadn't bought him the leniency that Steve had hoped. With the intelligence that Natasha had leaked, the Winter Soldier's crimes were out there for the whole world to see. Decades of them. And now they had their man.

Steve hung his head. "'Lucky's not the word I'd use."

Bucky's lips twitched, twisting into something almost like a smile. "Maybe not. But I didn't care what happened. Maybe one of those boys would have put a bullet in me. Maybe Hydra would have. I damn sure wasn't going to let them take me alive again. I thought that fighting would somehow make up for the things I've done. Fighting's easy. It makes sense. But I was just running. Actually turning and facing it, that's the hard part."

Hearing him talk like that, you could almost forget where they were, how bad things had gotten. This wasn't the same man he'd visited before, broken and screaming, barely able to look at him. This was Bucky, even if he didn't know it. And that made everything worse.

Because he knew what he'd done. Pieces of it, at least. Steve had read the reports, anything he could get his hands on. Buck had been able to recount some of the more recent missions, describe the things that Hydra had done to him. He knew he hadn't been in control and the doctors had their scans, had seen the scar tissue. He displayed remorse, they said, to such a degree that he'd sometimes go silent for days or beat his hands bloody on the walls of his room. Even now, his knuckles were raw. But he kept fighting – kept facing it, like he said. He'd told them what he knew, told them the truth. He was sorry.

He just needed more time. With time he might remember more, remember who he'd been. With time, they could—

"I know what this is, you know, why you're here." His smile was sad, but there was a calm behind his eyes, a steadiness that didn't waver. "You said it yourself, on the carrier."

Pushing back his chair, Steve stood and moved around the table. He'd spent his whole life getting Bucky into trouble – starting fights, dragging him across a warzone, letting him fall into Hydra's hands. Buck had never asked for any of that, but he'd never backed down either. That should count for something. It should have earned him more than this.

Not knowing what else to do, Steve knelt beside him and closed his hand over his.

Because Bucky hadn't backed down. He'd admitted what he'd done, the things he could remember. He'd told the truth, showed remorse. But that didn't mean what it should have. He displayed a clear understanding of right and wrong, they said. The tests showed only that Hydra had manipulated his memories. There was no evidence of any hardwired controls.

Hydra had had other tactics, other conditioning, other threats. You couldn't expect soldiers to defy orders just because they were on the other side. The lawyers had made these arguments and more, pushed through the appeals. But the fact remained that Buck knew what he had done, knew it then and knew it now. Under the letter of the law, that was the only distinction that mattered.

He'd come here to apologize, to tell him that he'd done everything he could – that he'd testified, made sure he had the best defense team, even gone on television to set the record straight. He wanted to tell him that there were people out there still fighting, that they'd taken to the streets in protest when the final verdict was handed down. He wanted to tell him that he'd find a way to break him out of here if he asked, that they'd fight their way out together.

But Buck wouldn't ask that. He was still watching him with that same calm, that same acceptance. In the end, all Steve could do was bury his face against his friend's knee.

Bucky smiled down at him. "End of the line, pal."


End file.
